


jumping bean

by thunderylee



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP
Genre: Canon Universe, M/M, Mpreg, Romance, chinen saya is magic, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderylee/pseuds/thunderylee
Summary: They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it’ll come true. This year, Yamada gets more than he could have ever wished for.





	jumping bean

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from agck. written for je-holiday 2013.

The sun is barely breaking the horizon when Chinen grabs me, pulling us both to a stop.

“What?” I whine, forcing my eyes to stay open. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning. I’m getting too old for this all-nighter shit.”

“Shut up,” Chinen says, but it’s soft and quiet and out-of-character enough for me to look down at him. He looks thoughtful—very sleepy, but there’s a hint of serenity in his eyes that someone who has been awake for over twenty-four hours wouldn’t normally have. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I shake myself out of my thoughts, following Chinen’s line of sight to the first break of light over the mountains. My exhaustion wins over my annoyance and I slump against the railing of the bridge we’re crossing, unaware of the words leaving my lips until I hear them spoken in my voice: “It is.”

“They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it’ll come true.” Chinen’s voice is as soothing as the scene before my eyes, an underlying depth that only comes out in the wee hours of the morning after working all night. “Make a wish, Yama-chan.”

There’s nothing particular that I want to wish for, aside from the health and happiness of my family and friends, maybe continued success for JUMP and the agency overall. Those seem to defeat the purpose of the superstition, though. Chinen’s probably wishing for something frivolous like a week’s vacation or going fishing with Ohno-senpai. Normally my selfish wish is to grow taller, but that’s starting to seem like a lost cause as I get older.

I wish for Chinen to get what he wishes, I think, satisfied with my selflessness. I’ll probably regret it later, when Ohno inevitably invites Chinen out and Chinen doesn’t shut up about it for the rest of the year, but it’ll be worth it when Chinen’s elation infects the entire group. When Chinen is happy, everyone is happy.

“I’m starving,” Chinen complains when we get to the train station, completely deserted due to the holiday. It’s practically the only time we can commute without being mauled by fangirls.

I check my bag for snacks while rolling my eyes. Clearly the wishes aren’t granted right away. “We have that bread Marius brought us from Germany,” I mutter, pulling out the wrapped bag with a red bow.

“He’s such a weird kid,” Chinen comments as he pulls out his own bag, bow pink. Marius had presented us all with little squares of gingerbread earlier at Countdown, which he claimed he had made with his grandmother when he’d returned to Germany a few months ago. “What does this even say?”

I lean over to squint at the foreign writing on the tiny square, then shrug. “Hell if I know. He said mine say ‘be happy’ or something in German.”

“Well, whatever.” Chinen unwraps his gingerbread and shoves it into his mouth before he’s even done saying ‘itadakimasu’. I watch as his eyes grow wider than they should at seven-thirty in the morning. “This is really good!”

“Yeah?” I ask, looking at my own gift. I’m not that hungry, not to mention I’d made a New Year’s resolution not to eat sweets anymore, but technically that doesn’t start until I’ve been to sleep. Without further thought I take a bite, instantly pausing at how it explodes with cinnamon and spice. “Wow.”

Chinen just nods, and together we sit in silence even after we’re done chewing. The train should be coming soon, then it’s just staying awake until we get to Chinen’s place. Chinen doesn’t know that I’m staying over yet, but considering the time nobody should mind. My oldest sister already practically lives there, anyway. One of the reasons I had wanted to cut my hair so short is because Chinen’s mom kept calling me Chihiro-chan when she didn’t have her glasses on.

Not that that stops Saya from giving me a strange look when she sees me in the hallway.

*

The new year brings much of the same, which isn’t as boring as I make it sound. I love my job—always have. I love singing and dancing and acting. I love my groupmates, senpai, and kouhai. I don’t love hosting Shounen Club very much, since just about every junior is taller than me and likes to point it out (and if they don’t, my lovely co-host does), but it could be worse.

“Yama-chan looks bigger!” Yuuma teases during our interview. “Are you storing fat for the winter?”

We’re recording, so I can’t say what I’d really like to say, but my feelings probably come across on my face. “Too much chocolate, apparently.”

Since Valentine’s Day had just passed, my response has the added benefit of rubbing it in Yuuma’s face that I got more chocolates than he did. To which Yuuma replies that he’d heard Sexy Zone’s Nakajima Kento had given me homemade chocolates, because he throws everyone under the bus equally, and Kento comes running out in his red swoosh to defend himself.

Everyone forgets about the jab toward my weight except for me. Later that night I stand in front of my full-length mirror, turning profile and lifting my shirt to examine my abdomen. I had finally started toning these muscles, and now they were completely gone. Sucking in my air makes it look slimmer, but I don’t feel any better.

“You are worse than a teenage girl,” my oldest sister’s voice sounds from the doorway, making me jump. “If you want to lose weight, don’t eat so many sweets.”

“Easy for you to say,” I shoot back, calmly walking toward the door. “You don’t have an ounce of fat on your body and you eat like a cow!”

“Blessed with good metabolism, what can I say?” Chihiro grins, and I take great joy is closing my door in her face.

I don’t tell her that I’ve actually been sticking to my diet and haven’t had a single sweet since Marius’ authentic German gingerbread on New Year’s morning.

*

You would think that most things could be overlooked in a group as large as mine, but I only make it until the cherry blossoms start to bloom before Chinen drags me into an empty practice room after an NYC meeting.

“This is how rumors get started, you know,” I joke, because his face is serious and it scares me a little.

“Do you think I’m fucking blind?” Chinen asks quietly, though it’s not really a question with how deadpan his voice is. “I spend basically all of my waking time with you, you know. You could at least pretend to eat something every now and then.”

“That would be a waste of food,” I mumble, looking down at my hands, which are shaking traitorously.

“I know you’re not dumb enough to starve yourself,” Chinen goes on, and now I really feel bad. “Explain.”

It’s like the floodgates have opened and everything comes pouring out, Yuuma’s comment and the conversation with my sister and how a lot of my pants don’t fit anymore because I’ve gained five kilograms since the beginning of the year. I’m not doing it to lose weight, I try to tell him; I just want to stop getting bigger.

“That’s weird,” Chinen assesses, looking oddly suspicious. “But it doesn’t mean you can just stop eating. Why do I even have to tell you this?! Do you want to pass out in the middle of a show?”

“No, of course not.” I take a deep breath and meet Chinen’s eyes. He looks more upset than I’ve ever seen him before, like he wants to cry and punch me in the face at the same time. It’s just as scary as his serious face, so I nod and insist, “I’ll eat. I promise.”

Chinen seems to accept that and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It’s not like I was completely starving myself, but even I knew that the small amount of food I put away each day wasn’t healthy. I couldn’t help it, though—the number on the scale kept rising no matter what I did.

There’s now a pudge when I sit in the bath, a little firm when I push on it. Maybe I have a tumor, I think, desperate for some excuse. Maybe my intestines have swollen from some disease. I would probably be in a least a little bit of pain if either of those were true, which I definitely don’t want them to be. I’ll take being fat over being sick anyday. I just don’t understand why it suddenly had to happen at age twenty. It’s like the powers that be are mocking me for wishing to grow taller by making me grow wider instead.

I didn’t even wish that this year, I remember bitterly. If this is what I get for being selfless, I’ll never make that sacrifice again.

*

Working out isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday, but Takaki is here with me and I suppose it could be a lot worse. Takaki and I are a lot alike when it comes to our body structure, except that he’s of course much taller. At any rate, I don’t mind going to the gym with him, mostly because I can fool myself into thinking that the extra weight is toned muscle.

“You don’t look too good,” Takaki says from the next treadmill, jogging at half the speed that I am, and then everything goes black.

When I wake up, I’m at the hospital with a sugar water drip in my arm and a very angry Chinen glaring down at me. “I’ve been eating!” I exclaim, but my voice is a little slow to catch up.

“Sensei says you’re malnutritioned,” Chinen says, gripping onto the railing of my bed so tightly that his knuckles are turning white. “I swear to everything holy, Yamada, I will force-feed you myself if I have to.”

“I really have…” I try again, but I get a sudden pang of dizziness and close my eyes to keep the world from spinning. “I’m sorry.”

The last thing I feel before I pass out again is a small hand grabbing onto mine.

*

Not a week goes by before I’m back in the hospital again, this time from fatigue. I had gotten disoriented during dance practice and lost my balance, falling to the floor where I was suddenly so tired that I couldn’t get back up. Now the entire group knows that there’s something wrong, and naturally they’re all in various stages of worry.

Yabu stays by my side the entire time, pushing my hair out of my face and smiling down at me with those bright eyes. I like Yabu’s company much better than Chinen’s, because Yabu doesn’t yell at me and accuse me of having an eating disorder. I don’t have an eating disorder. I am eating properly—three meals a day, four food groups, eight glasses of water, etc. etc. That brat must have told his sister about his concerns, because now my sister is on my case at home and takes it upon herself to fix my meals for me. I suppose that’s nice of her, but it’s not really necessary.

“You keep holding your stomach,” Yabu comments, his voice soft, and I look down to see that he’s right. “Does it hurt? Are you going to be sick?”

“No,” I answer. “It just feels weird.”

Yabu blinks. “Can I touch it?”

I nod and he replaces my hand with his own, palm down on my skin directly under the hospital gown, and I watch a frown spread on his face as he moves it around. “What is it? Do you feel something?”

“Yeah, but…” Yabu trails off, shaking his head slowly. “That’s not possible.”

“What’s not possible?” I ask, filled with hope at finally having a reason for all of these sudden physical problems. “Just say it.”

“This is how my sister’s stomach felt when she was pregnant,” Yabu blurts out, looking as confused at those words as I feel. “She was so excited she kept making us touch it even before she got big.”

I pause to consider that, getting lightheaded all over again for reasons that have nothing to do with fatigue. “I don’t understand.”

“Hold on,” Yabu says suddenly, disappearing from my sight. My skin is cold where his hand had been pressed to it, but what he puts on it next is even colder.

“What the—is that a stethoscope?” I ask, peering down. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use those on your own.”

Yabu ignores me, the ear buds pushed into his ears as he moves the incredibly cold sensor all around my belly. It’s possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced and I’ve been a Johnny for almost half of my life. Then Yabu pauses and I look up at his face to find the most amazed expression I’ve ever seen him make.

“What?” I demand, tugging at his arm so that he pays attention to me. “What do you hear?”

Slowly, Yabu pulls the stethoscope out of his ears and clears his throat. “Listen for yourself.”

I take the device from him and put it into my own ears while Yabu continues to hold the sensor still on one particular spot. I hear my own heartbeat, in perfect time with what I feel it to be, but there’s also something behind it, something faster. I look helplessly at Yabu, who shrugs, though his eyes can’t hide the truth.

“How…” I start to say, and Yabu just shakes his head. “What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” he replies quietly, pulling away the stethoscope to place his hand on my belly again, rubbing small circles where it’s the most swollen. It feels nice, enough to lull me back to sleep, oddly comforted by finally having a reason for all of this, even if it doesn’t make any sense at all.

*

Chinen Saya eyeballs me for ten entire seconds before shoving me down into a chair and leaning over me. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?” I reply, a little frantic at being ambushed like this by my older sister’s best friend. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You had to do something,” Saya goes on, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Guys just don’t get knocked up without some sort of provoking.”

“In what world do you live where this is a normal occurrence?!” I demand, turning to glare at Chinen standing over to the side. “What the hell is going on? Why did you bring me here?”

“I knew something was different about you when I saw you on New Year’s Day,” Saya goes on, ignoring my outburst. “You had this weird glow surrounding you. I’ve never seen it before on a man.”

I blink. “What are you?”

She smiles down at me, only taller because I’m sitting down. “Yuuri calls me a witch, but that’s a little glamorous for what I do.”

“Which is?!”

“I sense things.” Saya kneels next to me and starts to reach for my belly, then pauses. “May I?”

I nod my permission, watching her as she gently presses her hands to every angle of my abdomen. It feels weird and nice at the same time, her touch like a soft massage where my muscles have been strained and apparently relocated around.

“Yeah, it’s about twenty-two weeks,” Saya says, smiling as she looks up at me. “That places conception at New Year’s Day. Do you want to know the gender?”

“Huh?” My mind is spinning. “You can…sense all of this just by feeling my stomach?”

“She’s never wrong,” Chinen speaks up, watching this whole thing with an expressionless face. “We can’t exactly take you to a real doctor, so she’s the next best thing.”

“I’m not letting her cut me open,” I declare, my eyes widening as the reality of this situation weighs down on me.

“Relax, you’re stressing out the baby,” Saya says, and instantly I try to calm down. “I don’t mind doing this for you guys at all. It’s my niece, right?”

That has both Chinen and I gaping at her. “What?!” we exclaim in unison.

“You were together on New Year’s Eve…” Saya trails off, looking from me to her brother and back again. “Weren’t you?”

“Yes, but nothing happened!” Chinen answers before I can. “We’re not even like that!”

Now Saya’s frowning at both of us. “But it has our family genes all over it.”

“What does?” I ask carefully, though I already know the answer.

“The fetus,” Saya confirms my suspicions. “Your baby.”

I bring my hands to my face and try to make sense of all of this. “Nothing happened on New Year’s,” I say into my wrists. “I haven’t so much as kissed anyone in two years, and certainly not Chinen.”

“Don’t say that like it’s the worst thing ever,” Chinen says haughtily. “I’ll have you know that I am an amazing kisser.”

“Well, you can wait until she’s born and do a paternity test,” Saya tells us with a shrug, “but I’m always right about these things. When our mom was pregnant with Yuuri, I kept insisting that he was a boy when the doctors were sure that he was a girl, and I was only two years old.”

“He looks like a girl,” I point out.

“Says the one my mother keeps calling ‘Chihiro’,” Chinen shoots back without missing a beat.

Saya’s smile gets bigger until I skeptically question it. She just shakes her head, giving my stomach one last pat before getting to her feet. “I’m sure you can Google proper pregnancy behavior. The good news is that you don’t have that long to go, while the bad news is that the last three months are supposed to be the worst.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say sarcastically, then I remember something she’d said earlier. “Wait, did you say ‘niece’?”

Her hand flies to her mouth. “Oops! I did. I hope you didn’t want to be surprised.”

“It’s fine,” I reply, staring down at midsection in awe. A girl. I’m going to have a daughter.

I stare for so long that I jump when a hand rests on my shoulder. “Do you believe her?”

“I think I would remember if we had sex,” I say bluntly. “Especially if it resulted in me being the one like this.”

“She’s always right, though,” Chinen goes on. “And given how unconventional this situation is in the first place, it’s not completely impossible that it happened unconventionally as well.”

“That shouldn’t make as much sense as it does,” I say with a sigh. “Okay, think back. What did we do on New Year’s Eve? We worked all night, right?”

“Then we rode the train here and went to sleep,” Chinen adds, kneeling down by my side much like his sister had just done. “You slept on a futon on my floor and I slept in my bed. Nothing was out of the ordinary when we woke up later.”

“I went home and took a shower, then went back to work,” I recall. “Nothing weird.”

“We made those wishes on the first sunrise of the New Year, right?” Chinen offers. “Did you wish to have a family or something?”

“No,” I answer, but my eyes widen at the memory of what I did wish for. “Chinen, do you want to have a family?”

“Of course, someday.” Chinen folds his arms on my thigh and rests his chin on his hands, looking up at me. “That’s not what I wished for that morning, though.”

Neither one of us seems too keen to tell the other our real wishes, and I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to ask. It feels ridiculous to talk about this like our wishes could really be the reason why I’m pregnant, though no more ridiculous than me being pregnant in the first place.

“Is it okay for me to be happy?” Chinen asks quietly, pulling me from my thoughts. “I mean, it’s easier for me to accept this because I’m used to neechan’s predictions, so I actually believe that it’s, you know, my kid in there. Despite everything, I’m just…really excited to be a father.”

My nerves calm as I watch him look at my stomach with a strange fondness in his eyes. “You can touch it, if you want,” is all I say.

He rushes to do it like all he’d been waiting for this whole time is my permission, and I can’t help but smile as his face lights up at the contact. Chinen is happy-go-lucky as it is, but there’s something different in his eyes this time, something I haven’t seen before. It seems like I’m witnessing a lot of new reactions from him lately.

“Do you even feel anything?” I ask after a couple seconds.

Chinen laughs as he shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Stupid,” I say affectionately, and he shoves at my thigh. “Hey! Don’t hit the mother of your child.”

“You’re not pregnant in your legs.” He rolls his eyes as he looks up at me. “So does this mean you believe it?”

I take a deep breath before responding. “It’s easier to just believe it, isn’t it? Less stressful, and I shouldn’t be stressing, right?”

“What are you gonna tell your parents?” Chinen asks, and my blood runs cold. “I mean, mine are used to weird shit happening because of neechan’s gift, but this might be a little far-fetched even for them.”

“You’re not helping me not stress out,” I say pointedly. “Get up, I need to stand. My back hurts.”

“Spoken by a true pregnant person,” Chinen teases as he gets to his feet. I suppose I should be happy he didn’t say ‘woman’. “Come on, let’s go to my room and I’ll give you a massage.”

“Really?” I turn to give him a weird look. “Why?”

“Because that’s my role here,” Chinen replies matter-of-factly. “Shut up and enjoy it.”

For once, I follow his orders without complaint. I hadn’t thought that such small hands could feel so nice, skillfully working out my knots without being too rough. It’s so relaxing that I fall right to sleep, waking several hours later to a warm body next to mine and soft breaths on my arm.

My first instinct is to freak out, but given the events of the past twenty-four hours, this is the most normal I’ve felt.

*

Naturally, nobody believes us. Well, they believe that I’m pregnant after I pee on a stick and show them my newly acquired fat rolls, but not that Chinen and I hadn’t done anything to cause it. It’s the wrong time of the year for an immaculate conception, my father claims before telling me to get the fuck out of his house. I’m not supposed to lift anything, so I just walk out the door and hope Chinen doesn’t mind sharing his shampoo. I can’t fit into any of my clothes anyway.

My boss isn’t much better, but at least I don’t get fired. I squirm in an uncomfortable armchair with Chinen standing next to me while the old man plans the next six months of my life. He’ll promote BEST for the rest of the year, shove Yuuto and Chinen into dramas, and talk up Keito’s university load. Magazines can be photoshopped and I should have no problem being back in shape by Christmas. Enjoy your vacation, he tells me, and congratulations to the both of you.

“You know,” Chinen says conversationally as we walk to the elevator. “Eventually, we should talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about?” I reply, still a little testy from the meeting. I blame those stupid prenatal pills Chinen’s mother makes me take. “We’re having a baby. We already live together, I’m following all of Google-san’s rules, and your psychic sister says that everything is fine.”

“She’s not psychic,” Chinen grumbles, then sets his jaw as he continues ahead of me. “Never mind.”

And I’m the one with the hormones here. I can’t even look in a mirror anymore without bursting into tears at how fat I am. I’m almost as round as I am tall. Saya hadn’t been kidding about the last three months being the hardest; even though I hadn’t had any sickness or much pain other than minor back discomfort, my emotions were a wreck. Both of my sisters on their periods weren’t as bad as me some days.

Yet Chinen puts up with it all. I have never seen him make so much effort as he does when he’s calming me down. It’s for our daughter, he tries to explain. The fatter the mommy, the healthier the baby. I can understand that well enough, but that doesn’t make me hate my appearance any less. Just walking with all of this extra weight makes me feel so gross and unattractive. Having baby fat at twenty years old is nothing compared to this. The only good thing that will come out of this experience is my complete satisfaction with a less than perfect body after this is all over.

Well, that’s not the only good thing. Chinen and I both stare at Saya’s laptop as she runs this weird sensor over my stomach, a makeshift ultrasound performed by instruments she had obtained from who knows where. She can see the fetus just fine, she explains, but she wants to show it to us too. She thinks it will help me feel better about being a whale.

At seven months it should be pretty defined, but the picture is too grainy to see much more than an outline. I squint at the display as she points out the head and knees, and I frown at how it all just looks like a giant blob to me. But then Chinen makes a weird noise and I turn my head to see silent tears streaming down his face.

“Chinen?” I ask, reaching for his arm. My chubby fingers look even bigger next to his thin arms, but I try not to pay attention to that. “What is it? Are you okay?”

Then he smiles, completely offsetting the tears and confusing the hell out of me, especially when this warm feeling courses through me at the sight. Stupid hormones. For whatever reason they are moved by seeing Chinen like this. They think it’s beautiful.

“It’s our daughter,” Chinen whispers, gently placing his hand on my giant belly. We both gasp as the blob on the screen jerks around at the same time I feel it, the kicks that keep Chinen glued to my stomach every minute he’s home, even while we’re sleeping.

Saya just grins at us, both Chinens filled with a happiness that I don’t quite share. I’m excited to meet the baby, of course, but I can’t really look forward to that with as awful as I feel about myself and my body. I don’t know how women do it.

I also feel guilty that Chinen keeps doing everything for me. I’m so big that I can’t even bathe properly, but he has no complaints about kneeling next to the bathtub and cleaning me like a child. He’s going to be such a great father, I muse in an attempt to get over my embarrassment. Until this happened to us, I wouldn’t have thought Chinen had the patience to care for a houseplant, but now that I’ve seen him in action, I understand that some things are just worth his making the effort. Right now, that thing is me, and I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

It would be one thing if we’d actually hooked up that night and were now reaping the consequences, but I’ve never so much as touched him. Sure, it’s common for guys in our agency to mess around in shared hotel rooms every now and then, but not me and Chinen. We both value sleep more than sex, I guess. But somehow I feel like I missed out on something, like if I’m going to suffer like this I should have at least gotten laid out of it, even if I haven’t thought of Chinen like that before.

He treats me well enough, I reason with myself one night when we’re getting ready for bed. He has a few hours free in the morning and we’re going to shop online for baby furniture. We had wanted to get our own place, but his parents were being great about the whole thing and it would be dumb of us to not stay here and let them help us, even if it means squishing a crib into Chinen’s already-small bedroom.

I watch him as he curls up next to me, never once rolling out the futon since I moved in. He wants to be close to the baby, he tells me when I question him about it. I’m jealous at how fast he falls asleep, how he can stay asleep even when our daughter is kicking up a storm. She’s the most active at night, but everyone says that’s normal. It’s not like I have anything to do during the day except waddle around and watch TV, but it’s still exhausting to sleep in fifteen-minute increments.

It’s only going to get worse after the baby is born, but I’d much rather deal with her outside of my body.

*

“So when are you two getting hitched?” Yuuto greets us at the beginning of month nine, and Chinen grabs my wrist before I can punch our unnaturally tall groupmate.

Let’s be honest, it would have probably hurt me more than it hurt him, but it would have certainly made me feel better. “There will be no hitching,” Chinen says calmly. “That’s not even legal here.”

“And we’re not together like that,” I add, shooting a glare up at Yuuto.

“Yeah, okay,” Keito teases, but he’s too far away for me to hit. “Where is this kid coming out again?”

Yuuto bursts out laughing and I’m seething, wonder why the hell we even invited them over when Chinen rubs slow circles on my back and instantly calms me down. “It’ll be a cesarean,” he tells them. “Scheduled for October first.”

“What if she wants to come out before then?” Yuuto asks, now looking concerned. “How will she let Yama-chan know?”

I shrug. “Google-san only covers female pregnancies, so I guess we’ll have to deal with that when it comes.”

“What are you going to name her?” is the next question, spoken by Keito.

“We don’t know yet,” both Chinen and I answer in unison.

“You’re so married,” Yuuto comments, but it doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of us this time. “Baby Girl YamaChii will be so spoiled.”

“And short,” Keito points out. “Very, very short.”

Thankfully they shut up after that and help Chinen put together the baby furniture we had ordered. I sit on the bed, supervising while scrolling through our baby registries online. I had told Chinen I would literally kill him if anyone threw me a baby shower, which probably only didn’t happen because everyone we know is so busy, but we still received a lot of gifts from our colleagues. Keito’s dad and the rest of the daisenpai pooled together to buy our crib, which is one of those adjustable ones that turns into a toddler bed, and all five members of SMAP personally delivered what looked like a year’s supply of infant diapers while wearing nothing but adult ones. Between Inocchi and Kimutaku’s hand-me-downs and the younger groups wanting to contribute, this kid already has more clothes and toys then she’ll know what to do with.

“Yama-chan, we’ve been friends for a long time, right?” Yuuto tells me when Chinen and Keito go to the store for liquid motivation. “Half our lives, I’d say.”

“Almost,” I reply, hugging my fat belly as I try to stretch my legs on Chinen’s—our—bed. It’s the most exercise I can manage since I’m forbidden from going outside in case someone sees me like this. “Something wrong? I have nothing better to do than listen to you if you have a problem.”

“It’s not my problem,” Yuuto says so pointedly that I look up at him, seeing concern all over his face. “It’s Chinen’s.”

“Chinen?” I reply, my heartbeat quickening at the thought of Chinen being upset. Why hadn’t he told me? More importantly, why hadn’t I noticed? Was he mad at me? “What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong with him is that he’s in love with you,” Yuuto blurts out, and everything seems to stop. “At first we thought he was just all starry-eyed over the baby, but then he started getting that way when he talked about you. It’s so cute that it’s disgusting.”

I blink. “That doesn’t mean he’s in love with me. He’s just really happy to be a father.”

“Yama-chan, I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known you,” Yuuto says gently. “I’ve only seen him like this once, back when he was all fucked up over Umika-chan. Do you remember?”

“Vaguely,” I answer honestly. “Didn’t she turn him down?”

“Yes, but that was after he spent months pining over her. The way he acts toward you now reminds me of that. A lot.”

“Yutti,” I say slowly, not wanting to process this information at all. “I appreciate your intentions, but I think you’re wrong. Chinen has always been open about his feelings, even back then. Everyone within a kilometer radius knew that he had it bad for her. If he really felt that way about me, he would have told you or Takaki or someone by now.”

Yuuto frowns. “He’s grown up a lot, you know. We all have. There isn’t much to lose by admitting those things when we’re younger, but there’s a lot more at stake now that we’re older.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, starting to get irritated. “Don’t upset me, dammit. I don’t want to know what it feels like to go into early labor.”

“Forget it, then.” Yuuto looks disappointed as he turns away, which just pisses me off even more. I didn’t do anything to deserve disapproval from someone who’s never even had a proper relationship. “Just remember that this isn’t just about you.”

His words haunt me for the days to come, which get more and more stressful as my due date gets closer. I pay more attention to Chinen when he takes care of me and all I notice is that he looks tired, brushing off my protests when I tell him to worry about himself instead. He’s fine, he assures me, he doesn’t mind. It’s worth it to make me comfortable, happy, relaxed.

Me. Not the baby, me. “Chinen, do you have feelings for me?” I ask him point-blank when we’re lying in bed. He’s draped over my stomach, rising and falling with each of my breaths while our daughter kicks him everywhere she can reach. I have no idea how anyone can sleep like that.

My words catch him just before he drifts off, his eyelids lifting like they weigh a thousand pounds. “Yes,” he answers, so casually that it doesn’t register in my brain right away, but when it does, I know exactly how I got pregnant.

“Looks like both of our New Year’s wishes came true,” I say quietly, Chinen’s soft breathing implying that he’s already asleep.

*

“That’s impossible,” Saya crushes my theory the next morning. “Wishes can’t transcend science.”

“I didn’t wish for a baby, anyway,” Chinen grumbles, annoyed at being pulled from his sleep so early to catch Saya before she left for work.

“How did it happen, then?!” I exclaim. “Nothing else makes sense.”

Saya sighs as she adjusts her hat. “It’s magical, whatever it is,” she tells them. “Tracing back to New Year’s Day. I had just seen Yamada-kun the night before when Yuuri was picked up for work—I remember you waved at me from the van—and there was no glow at all. Something happened between then and when you got back here. Something magical. Do you know any magic people?”

“What, like wizards?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.

Saya rolls her eyes. “All magic isn’t wizardry, you know. Anyone can cast a spell if they have the right ingredients. All it would take is someone experienced enough to manipulate molecules, and suddenly you have a baby growing inside you that’s made from both your and my brother’s genes.”

“Would you know if someone was magic?” Chinen asks her curiously.

“Yes, but I’d have to see them in person, not on TV.” Saya shrugs on her jacket and grabs her keys. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen any magic people in Japan for a long time. They died out a few centuries ago, but I heard there are still a few scattered throughout the world.”

“So the only way someone could put a spell on me is from overseas?” I summarize, even more hopeless than before.

“Seems so.” She turns to leave, tossing a final glance over her shoulder. “Does it really matter how it happened, though? You’re having a baby. Accept it and move forward, because she’s going to be here in a couple weeks whether you’re ready or not. See you later.”

The atmosphere is eerily quiet after the door closes behind her. Chinen’s slumped against the wall, looking like he could fall back asleep right there if I let him, but I’m not ready to give up solving this mystery yet. “What did you wish for, Chii?”

His eyes open again, much easier this time, but he only holds my stare for a few seconds before dropping his gaze to the floor. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” I say gently, glancing over to the couch. “Over here, so I can sit down.”

Wordlessly he follows, flopping down on the next cushion that somehow feels too far away. I’ve gotten used to having him close, but like Yuuto had said, this isn’t about me, at least not right now.

I wait patiently for him to speak; all I have is time, really. Sitting here watching Chinen battle himself mentally is more productive than anything I’ve done in the past three months. I try to send him silent encouragement, because if sixth senses and magic are real then telepathy can be too, but he doesn’t look any less frustrated than before.

“I’m the youngest, you know?” Chinen finally says, talking more to his hands than me, and all at once I realize how hard this is for him to say. “I haven’t always been, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve always been smaller and weaker than everyone. I kept thinking I would grow bigger and stronger, but it never happened.”

“I hear you,” I interject, smiling when he lets out a short chuckle. “You’re not alone there, you know.”

“I’m smaller than you too, though,” Chinen points out. “Even Ryuutaro grew bigger than me. I got used to it, and it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it bothers you, but sometimes I feel like no one needs me.”

“What the hell,” I scoff, turning to give him an incredulous look. “Of course we need you! You’re practically one of the frontmen of the group. You’re just as popular as I am! I’ve always said that you should have solos, too.”

Now Chinen laughs. “I highly doubt that, but that’s not what I’m talking about anyway. I’ve never questioned my place in JUMP. Solos don’t matter to me. I’m happy doing whatever is asked of me. It’s been six years, but I’m still amazed that people want to watch me sing and dance on stage, you know? Even if I have to share it with eight other people.”

“That’s admirable,” I tell him, feeling even warmer at his loyalty to our group.

“You know how everyone counts on Yabu for encouragement?” Chinen goes on, lifting his eyes to look at me properly, and I can’t really define what I see within them. “Inoo-chan is the smart one who helped us with our homework in high school. Hikaru listens to all of our problems, Dai-chan gives great advice, and even Takaki can take charge and handle things when he has to.”

“BEST are older than us, yes,” I say. “What are you getting at?”

Chinen sighs. “I just wanted someone to need me like that. No one comes to me when they’re upset or lost. Everyone is always doing things for me, just because I’m the smallest. Not that I mind at all, but after a while I yearned to be the one to do things. I wanted to take care of someone else for once. Someone who will look up to me and trust me the way we trust those guys.”

I nod as I listen, remembering how often Chinen gets spoiled by everyone in the group, including me. “I understand, I think.”

“I guess the sun goddess figured that the only way this could happen is if I had a baby,” Chinen goes on, laughing a little. “And since you were there with me…I don’t know.”

“I wished for you to get what you wished for,” I finally tell him. “I didn’t have anything I particularly wanted, so I gave my wish to you.”

“Apparently that was your consent to house our child,” Chinen mutters. “I’m sorry, Yama-chan. I know you didn’t ask for any of this.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, playing patty-cake with my daughter through my skin. “For what it’s worth, you take very good care of me. I can only imagine how much better it will be after she’s born.”

“I like it, a lot,” Chinen admits, his cheeks tinting like he’s confessing something scandalous. “Being needed by you. You’re the last one I ever expected to need me, since you’re so far ahead of me in everything, so in a way that’s enough to satisfy the wish on its own.”

“Do you want to talk about your feelings for me?” I ask suddenly, feeling more nervous about it than Chinen looks. “Because I want to talk about them.”

“I think it’s a combination of everything,” Chinen starts, like he’s trying to justify it for himself as well as me. “Being so close to you all the time, knowing you need me so much, and the fact that you’re having my baby to begin with…it was inevitable, wasn’t it? After all of that, I would be coldhearted if I didn’t at least like you a little bit.”

“I can only speak for how I feel now, riddled with hormones,” I preface my words, because everything within me really wants to say them, “but I think I have them, too. Feelings. For you.”

I watch Chinen smile as he reaches for my hand, once again reminding me how much thicker my fingers are than his. “I’m really happy.”

I want to say the same, but each squeeze of his hand just makes me feel uncomfortable. “How can you even be attracted to me, though?” I ask, unable to stop the insecurities from pouring out. “I’m so huge and gross. I break a sweat when I get up—”

“Yamada Ryosuke,” Chinen cuts me off firmly, his eyes hard as he glares at me. “If you call yourself fat one more time, I’m going to show you how attracted to you I really am.”

That has me falling silent, staring at him in disbelief. “Really?”

“Really.”

I think about that for a few seconds, then hide a smirk as I lift our joined hands. “But look at my fingers. They practically swallow yours. I could probably break your knuckles just by squishing them. I—”

The rest of my words are eaten by Chinen, who sits up on his knees to grab the front of my shirt and press our mouths together, effectively silencing me. I don’t know how I thought Chinen would kiss, if I had ever thought about it before now, but I wouldn’t have expected it to be so intense, so demanding. All he’s doing is pressing our lips together and it’s like I’m paralyzed in place, unable to move, wholly under his command.

“You’re beautiful,” Chinen whispers, letting go of my shirt to wrap his arms around my neck, and this time I kiss him, my body coming back to life as I share my feelings the only way I know how.

Something wet hits my cheek and my eyes pop open, because it’s not from me. Chinen looks sheepish as he wipes his face, then tosses me a look. “Shut up, I’m happy.”

“Have you been getting into my prenatals?” I ask him seriously, and he swats at my arm before I pull him completely into my lap, kissing him again. It’s a little addictive, especially when he flicks his tongue between my lips and my mind spins. I’ve never had such a powerful kiss before, and that’s how I know that whatever I’m feeling is real.

It’s a little awkward to sit like this, Chinen basically hunched over my protruding belly, but it works well enough for him to kiss me senseless, making me forget where we are and what I look like as I feel the muscles of his back under my hands.

“We’re gonna do this together, right?” I ask between kisses, because I feel much braver with him so close to me. “We’re gonna be a family?”

“Yeah,” he replies, grinning so hard that I can’t kiss him properly. “A family.”

*

Inoo hovers over me with a scalpel and I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life. “Ready, Yama-chan?”

“No,” I answer honestly. I’m lying in the Chinens’ bathtub with only a pair of shorts on, old ones I won’t mind tossing out after this. Chinen’s on one side of me and his sister is on the other, the homemade ultrasound showing a much bigger blob that’s more or less thrashing around because she wants out.

“It’s okay, Yama-chan,” Chinen insists, holding my hand with both of his. “Inoo-chan has a steady hand and excellent depth perception from his studies—”

“He has a degree in architecture, not medicine!” I exclaim, starting to freak out now that I’m five seconds away from being cut open by our keyboardist. “Can’t we just pay a real doctor a lot of hush money to do it?!”

“I told you we should have tranqed him,” Chinen mutters to his sister, but she reaches across the bathtub to smack him in the head.

“That’s not good for the baby!” she exclaims. “We can drug him afterward. For now, we just have to get her out.”

“Just fucking do it,” I grumble, squeezing my eyes shut and clamping down on Chinen’s hand because this is all his fault.

Instantly Saya’s hands are on my abdomen, so far down that it’s almost indecent, but thankfully she stops just before the waistband of my shorts. “Cut here,” she instructs Inoo. “Don’t go more than a couple centimeters, since there’s not an actual uterus.”

“Thank god for that,” I mutter, and Chinen just dabs my forehead with a washcloth.

I brace myself for the pain of being cut open, but I only feel a little pressure. Saya’s hissing instructions to Inoo, telling him how to open my skin and where to reach inside, and I wonder if it just hurts so much that I’m completely numb already. Curiously I open my eyes, but it feels like I’m watching it happen to someone else. There’s a small trickle of blood from where Inoo had cut me, but that’s it.

Everything else is magic. That’s the only way I can describe it. Even Saya looks amazed at the translucent substance that disintegrates once it hits the air. Inoo seems to be concentrating on his very important task for which he is not at all qualified, but he just stops and stares once he has the glowing bundle in his hands—my baby.

“Do you guys see that?” Saya asks quietly. “Is it glowing for you?”

“Yeah,” the three of us answer, followed by a piercing agreement from the newest member of the world.

Inoo seems to snap right back into doctor mode after that, handing off the baby to Saya while he stitches up my abdomen. “This is probably going to scar,” he says apologetically as he wipes away what little blood I had produced.

“I don’t care,” I tell him, my attention on Saya bathing the very real, very loud baby girl in the sink, carefully wiping her down. “I didn’t even feel anything. It was so surreal.”

“You can thank whoever put this spell on you for that,” Saya calls over. “It looks like she’s been charmed to be painless. That’s probably why you didn’t have any pregnancy problems, either.”

“That’s nice,” I say, not really listening to what she’s saying. She seems to notice this and laughs as she grabs one of the SMAP-provided diapers and fastens it onto the infant. I’m nearly crawling out of the bathtub with how badly I want to see her, which has Saya smiling even bigger as she kneels back down and transfers the baby into my arms.

She’s beautiful. She has Chinen’s nose, but that’s okay. She’s wide awake and squirming enough for me to hold on tighter, not letting her go anywhere. I maintain my grip even when Chinen leans over, lightly sifting his fingers through the tufts of dark hair on her head and looking just as enamored as I feel.

When I finally drag my eyes away from my daughter, I see Inoo kneeling at the end of the bathtub, looking pretty damn proud of himself. “Thanks,” I tell him.

He just shakes his head. “Thank you for letting me share this experience with you. Yabu’s gonna be so jealous.”

“I can hear you!” Yabu yells from the other side of the door. “Is it safe to come in now?”

“Wait,” Chinen calls out, grabbing a towel to throw over me because what’s left of my stomach isn’t that nice to look at. “Okay.”

The rest of the group comes pouring into the small bathroom, six more faces to coo at the baby who seems disinterested with all of them, but all I see is her. And Chinen, who’s practically attached to my side with one arm flung around my shoulders and the other snug under our daughter.

“Good work,” Chinen whispers in my ear, and I suddenly understand the feeling of wanting to cry because you’re so happy.

*

Baby Girl YamaChii isn’t even an entire day old before she gets her name. Chinen had wanted to name her after the sun goddess, Amaterasu, but I thought that was a little old-fashioned. Since I got fat for this, I get the final say. So far everyone calls her ‘the baby’ anyway.

It’s nighttime when Chinen’s doorbell rings, but not late enough to be inappropriate. We all happen to be sitting in the living room anyway, fawning over the baby like she’s more entertaining than anything on TV, so Chinen detaches himself from me for probably the third time all day and goes to answer the door.

Out of all the people I expected to drop by and congratulate us, my entire family was not amongst them. I start to stand up to greet them, but my incision is still very tender and I’m cringing before I even get halfway to my feet.

“No, don’t move,” my mother says, bowing politely at Chinen’s parents and excusing her rudeness. “We’ll come to you.”

My father doesn’t look that happy to be here, but his face changes once he sees the baby girl in my arms. Predictably my mother is crying, instantly bonding with Chinen’s mother over their first grandbaby, and my sisters are cooing from a distance.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say quietly, feeling like a child again as I look up at my father. “Please forgive me and accept your granddaughter.”

My mother cries harder, and my father spares her a glance before sighing and giving Chinen a skeptical eyeball. “You both are going to raise this little girl together?”

“Yes sir,” Chinen answers, and I nod. “I may not look like it, but I’m prepared to take care of my family until the end. I love them both more than anything in this world.”

I elbow him, because that’s seriously embarrassing to say in front of both of our families, but it seems to appease my father. “I’ll hold you to that, son,” he says, and I can feel Chinen beaming proudly next to me.

“We’ll help, too,” my mother jumps in, and Chinen’s parents nod their agreement. “Since the boys are so busy with work. It’ll be nice having a baby around again. They grow up so fast.”

“Thanks, everyone,” I say, failing to hide a sniffle, but Chinen just squeezes my waist and reaches for our daughter.

“Okay, you can stop hogging the baby now,” he teases. “You got to hold her for nine months.”

“That hardly counts,” I reply, though it’s not much of an argument as I take in the sight of my little princess in Chinen’s arms. It feels like something literally squeezes my heart in my chest and I wonder if this is what it feels like to fall in love.

The doorbell rings again in the middle of my epiphany, but I pay it no mind until an unexpected voice is exchanging pleasantries with Saya. “Kento?” I guess, turning around.

Not only is Nakajima Kento standing in Chinen’s living room, but he’s also holding his youngest member by the back of his jacket like a mother cat would carry her kittens. “Tell them what you told me,” he says sternly, and Marius cringes as he takes in all of the strangers in the room.

“My grandmother,” he says slowly, cowering like we’re all going to attack him. “She ‘blessed’ the gingerbread I gave you all for Christmas as we made them. I didn’t think anything of it until I wrote her and told her what happened to Yamada-senpai, to which she replied ‘guess this old hag’s still got it’.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Saya says as she looks at him in awe. “A little bit of her magic remains in you, did you know? I can see it.”

Marius’ face lights up. “Really? What do I do with it?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Saya replies. “You should ask your grandmother. But I bet your combined efforts made her spell even stronger.”

“He gave the gingerbread to all of us, though,” I speak up skeptically. “Why was I the only one to be affected by it?”

“Maybe because we ate it together?” Chinen suggests gently. “Or because we made wishes on the New Year’s sunrise…who knows.”

Since Chinen’s holding the baby, I feel safe enough to (carefully) stand up and cross the room to my kouhai. I don’t stop, pulling Marius right into my arms and hugging him tightly, not bothering to hold back my tears as I sob out, “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you’re not mad,” Kento’s voice sounds through all of my feelings. “I told him he shouldn’t have waited so long to say something.”

“He probably shouldn’t have,” I agree, pulling back and stretching up on my toes to ruffle Marius’ hair. Ordinarily it would bother me that he’s so much taller than me at only fourteen, but right now I couldn’t care less. “It’s okay, though. And don’t be so mean to your members, Kento.”

“Sorry, senpai,” Kento mumbles. “I just know that this messed up your job a little bit, so I wanted him to take responsibility.”

“Wait, so you two didn’t really…?” Chihiro asks, trailing off as she looks back and forth between Chinen and me. “Wow, it really was an immaculate conception.”

“Merry Christmas,” Marius jokes, and I laugh so hard that it hurts as I drag them both over to meet my daughter.

“I think we should name her Mariko,” I say to Chinen, who just grins and nods.

*

I’m not in top shape by Christmas, but I can dance as well as before and it’s cold enough that I can hide it with bulky sweaters. Yuuma takes great joy in poking my cheeks on Shounen Club, Takaki and I are back to being gym buddies, and everything returns to normal.

Except the little miracle at the end of the bed, nestled in her crib that probably costs more than both of our family’s houses combined. Neither one of us gets any sleep those first couple months, catching catnaps whenever we can at work, and the others let us get away with it as long as we don’t drag ass on stage. Both of our families and all of our friends keep offering to baby-sit, but we can’t let her go just yet. Not when we already miss so much from being away at work.

“You two are going to spend New Year’s together and that’s final,” Saya booms from the genkan, where she’s already loaded up with baby gear. She has everything but the actual baby, because I haven’t handed her over yet.

“But neechan—” Chinen starts, but Saya isn’t having it.

“Give her to me or I’ll put a curse on you,” she threatens, and even though we all know she isn’t really that kind of magic, I don’t want to take any chances.

You would think we’d be separated for a month with as much of a fuss Chinen and I make over saying good-bye, both of us clinging to each other like idiots when Saya finally drives off. She had moved out not long after Mariko was born, offering up her old room, but we haven’t gotten around to moving anything yet. It’s easier to tend to our daughter in the middle of the night if she’s in the same room, anyway.

New Year’s Eve means Countdown and various other television appearances, so our ‘New Year together’ doesn’t even start until around three A.M. At least we didn’t stay at the after-party until the sun rose this year; as it was, we had both fallen asleep on four different occasions before Yabu told us we were being rude and just to go home.

The house seems really empty without a baby, Chinen’s parents having gone away on their own New Year’s trip. That leaves just Chinen and I to sleep uninterrupted, taking a quick bath together before slipping under the sheets. He’s colder than usual, snuggling up to me to steal my body warmth, and I happily envelop him in my arms, happy to return the favor after six months of him taking care of me.

“We should stay up and watch the sunrise,” he mumbles somewhere in my throat.

“You are falling asleep as you say that,” I tease him, laughing as I thread my fingers through his hair. It’s getting long again, but I think he’s growing it out on purpose because he likes how this feels, chasing my hand with his head like a cat seeking attention.

“You could keep me awake,” Chinen replies, his implication so blatant that I just blink at him. “You don’t want to?”

“I…um,” I reply eloquently, feeling like a fumbling virgin again with how nervous I feel. We already have a baby, for fuck’s sake. Sex should not be a big deal. “Okay.”

“Mmm, good, because I’ve been thinking about it a lot.” Chinen presses against me more pointedly now, and all at once my body reminds me how long it’s been since anyone’s been this close to me. “It’s strange, right?” he goes on. “Since it’s our first time together and all.”

“Yeah.” I slip my hand up his shirt, feeling his skin quiver under my touch and realizing it’s probably been just as long for him, if not longer. “How do you want to do it?”

“You inside me,” Chinen answers bluntly, tugging on my shoulders until he’s on his back with me on top of him. “Ah, you’re heavy.”

I pinch him in response. “Shut up. I’m still losing my baby weight.”

“No, I like it,” Chinen says, wrapping both his arms and legs around me, keeping me right where I am. “Makes me feel safe.”

“Well, in that case…” I trail off, leaning down to kiss him since he’s right in my face. He kisses back, just as mind-blowing and fiery as any other time, only it doesn’t stop after a few seconds. There’s no work to go to, no parents to worry about, and no baby to cry. It’s just the two of us, alone, in the bed we’ve shared for half of this past year, finally about to do what everyone thought we did exactly a year ago.

He whines as I pull away to root around in the nightstand. “Do you want me to use a condom?”

“I don’t know, is it my turn to have the baby?” Chinen teases, and I pinch him again. I must have hit a good spot this time, because he makes a small noise and rocks up against me, pulling me right back to where we are and what we’re about to do. “No, you don’t have to. I want to feel all of you.”

A groan surfaces from deep within my lungs at that, his legs falling to either side as I settle between them. I can feel him start to harden through the soft cotton of our sleep pants, which just has me grinding down to speed it up. He returns to my mouth, kissing me hard and tugging at my clothes like he would rather rip them off than pull away long enough to remove them, but years of costume changes has them out of the way in no time, leaving us skin to skin.

“I still feel like a cow,” I mutter into his neck as his hands go straight for the flesh at my waist.

“Shut up and get in me,” he growls, lowering his hand even more to where I’m just as hard as he is. The sudden groping makes me squeak, which would be embarrassing if it didn’t feel so damn good. “You can work it off like this,” he adds.

“Ha ha,” I say sarcastically, though it becomes more of a possibility when my abs start to tense before we even really get started. Chinen squeezes me pointedly and pulls his legs up to his chest, looking up at me with smouldering eyes that leave no doubt in my mind how much he wants it, how much he wants me. “Damn, okay.”

He makes these cute little noises as I stretch him, taking my time and searching for that spot that makes him arch and cry out my first name, which I rather enjoy hearing like this. I grunt into his neck and finger him a little harder, my own arousal soaring at the way he jerks and writhes beneath me, and I can’t stop myself from moaning along with him, even though he’s not touching me anymore.

“Ryosuke,” he says again, like he’s making up for all of the times he never said it before. “You’re so hot right now, just from touching me?”

It sounds like a question, so I explain. “Your voice.”

“Oh, you like my voice?” Chinen asks, and I can almost hear the taunting in his tone. “I won’t hold back, then.”

All at once his noises are much louder, much closer to my ear, and my body trembles with the need to be inside him right now. I make it until he’s pushing back against my three fingers before I yank them out, giving myself a quick slather of lube before looping my arms around Chinen’s legs and looking down at him.

“This is where you say you love me and fuck my brains out,” Chinen says helpfully, and I lean down to shut him up with my mouth. It’s easy to push in as I kiss him, tasting his moans on my tongue until I’m all the way in, pausing to give myself time to catch my breath as well as him.

“I love you,” I whisper needlessly, but it makes my skin tingle all the same. “I love you so much, Chinen Yuuri.”

My hips thrust on their own right after that, punctuating my words and pulling a high-pitched moan from Chinen’s throat. He arches again, tightening around me so much that I can hardly keep my rhythm, shuddering on top of him and groaning into his mouth. Chinen reaches down to touch himself and it’s so hot that I can’t keep from moving faster, harder, feeling him all around me and beneath me and somehow inside me too.

He comes first, crying out my first name in a way I will never forget, and I’m right behind him, clinging onto his small body as I shiver out my own orgasm. I should probably get up, but I can’t actually move and besides, Chinen’s holding onto me so tightly that I don’t think i could escape even if I wanted to.

“I love you, too,” he replies shakily, breathing so hard that I’m rising and falling with his chest. “I’m so glad we ate that stupid gingerbread together.”

A few hours later, after a lot of lazy cuddling and some reluctant cleaning up, we trudge out onto the back porch to watch the sun rise. It’s no different than it had been last year, but completely different at the same time.

“This year, I wish for you to get everything you want,” Chinen says, slumping against my arm that naturally wraps around him.

I squeeze him, not remembering what it felt like to not have him close to me, and smile. “I already have.”


End file.
